On Monday at the Garden, netminder Henrik Lundqvist was spectacular in a 3-0 triumph over the Predators. It was his second shutout of the season, a 31-save gem in which he neutralized his team’s parade to the penalty box and defensive-zone lapses to record the Blueshirts’ 11th win in the past 12 games.

“We’re not going to apologize for good goaltending,” coach Alain Vigneault said.

Nor should they. The Rangers (16-3-2) do very little else but win these days, and more often than not, it’s because of Lundqvist. He’s the one that kept the game scoreless after the Blueshirts took eight minutes of penalties in the first period, and held strong in the second when Nashville (11-6-3) tried to push out of its epic offensive malaise, now a franchise-worst 213:57 without a goal.

Lundqvist’s 25 saves in the opening 40 minutes were in stark contrast to his counterpart, Pekka Rinne, who had faced just seven shots — and could do very little to stop Rick Nash’s sniper blast at 4:32 of the second as the Rangers took a 1-0 lead on his fourth goal in the past two games.

“Was it a perfect game? No,” Lundqvist said. “But I’d rather just find a way to win than play perfect and not win. So I think we’re all happy with this.”

Once again, Lundqvist was the one giving the Rangers a chance, and once again, they took advantage. They finally came out in the third with a little bit of gusto, and buried Peter Laviolette’s suddenly slumping Preds with a Derek Stepan goal at 4:23 off a sweet pass from Marc Staal, followed just over six minutes later on a long seeing-eye power-play wrist shot from Kevin Hayes to take the 3-0 lead.

“When the game was on the line in the third period,” Vigneault said, “we played our best period.”

This is the way the Rangers are doing it — they are kept in games by goaltending, and then consistently get big plays at big moments. It’s hardly a sustainable tactic, but always, the rule is not be overly critical of victories.

“I’m not sure if I’m trying to be critical with the team, I’m trying to get them to play better,” Vigneault said. “After a loss, or after a win, the approach is the same.”

In this strange start to the season, it’s almost as if there is a waiting for the Rangers to start to play better, and then to watch them start to lose. They obviously can’t keep up this torrid pace of points — right now set to record 132 in the 82-game season — but they have opened up a nice lead in the Metropolitan Division, five points clear of the second-place Capitals and 11 points clear of the Devils and Islanders, tied for fourth.

And when mistakes happen, there is always Lundqvist.

“I don’t expect us to play perfect for 60 minutes,” he said. “As a goalie, you need to be there when the team is not on their toes, or taking a couple penalties early. I need to do some work. And then the fun part is, as long as I take care of my part, I know they’re going to get going. That’s a fun way to win games, when you help each other out.”

No matter how it’s happening, the Rangers are winning games. It’ll be a test when the only other team with a claim for best in the Eastern Conference, the Canadiens, come into the Garden on Wednesday. And it won’t be easy in Boston on Friday afternoon, or Saturday afternoon with the pesky Flyers in town. All of it is a preamble to the first showdown with the Islanders at Barclays Center on Dec. 2.

By then, maybe the Blueshirts will have come back to Earth. Or maybe Lundqvist won’t let them.

“We’ve played some good hockey, and at times we’ve had Hank play some good hockey for us,” Stepan said. “The combination of the two seems to be finding our way here.”